tax reform. each should be made permanent or fazed out based on that review, but realistically, the congress will not make those decisions before the end of this year. tax reform will take the better part of a year to accomplish or perhaps even longer. we will need to pass an extenders bill before then, and we have one before us today that is worthy of being passed. a third reason we should pass the tax extenders package now and not wait until the 11th hour is that waiting could force the i.r.s. to delay the tax filing season by ten weeks or more for millions of americans. in fact, we are at the 11th hour. i should amend my comments to make that point very clear. this need for the i.r.s. to delay the tax filing season is because the bill extends many provisions that expired at the end of 2011. they need to be extended for 2012 before people file their tax returns beginning in january of 2013. after congress acts, if it acts, the i.r.s. needs weeks to finalize tax forms and instruction books and t